Can anybody help me please!

[MichelMauquoi]

Hi,

I'm not an SEO expert! I'm even not a professional Webmaster. I'm a professional "Private Investigator", owner of a PI Agency in Bangkok (Thailand).

Our website (thailand-investigation.com) was ranked, 18 months ago, on the 1st page in Google, Bing & Yahoo search engines for our major keywords!

We are still good in Bing and Yahoo but we dropped to the 5th page and more in Google! I do not know when it happened? I was busy working managing my business and was not taking care on our website (BIG mistake)!I realized it beginning of august 2012.

I redesigned our website, ad content, new pages...Started 2 months ago, but still no result with our home page! The new pages start to show-up!??? But still far away!

I need to understand why? What is going on!? Why Google "de-ranked" us? And what to do to recover!!!

I'm here to learn, try to understand and take your advises!

So, please give me advises and if someone is ready to audit my website and explain me what to do, I'm willing to pay the service [not to much ].

Thanks,

helpButton.jpg

[edwardrj]

Many of us here offer consulting and other services, including myself. I don't feel like this is the place for self promotion, but I will say that there appears to be a number of knowledgeable folks here. And yes, I think the list of recommended companies/individuals is a good place to start.

[donford]

2. I don't know exactly how the button is coded..but basically what you want to do is remove the index.htm from the extension just use the full url href="http://www.thailand-investigation.com"

NOT: href="../index.htm"
NOT: href="index.htm"
NOT: href="http://www.thailand-investigation.com/index.html"

3. I completely understand your concern, however great sites with good content attract links by the users. Search engines want to rank sites people actually like and use, great the site for the users, and follow the basic seo guidelines and you'll be pleased with the results.

4. Do Yahoo and Bing still use it? This is a very good question, you'll get different answers from different people.

Google says they don't factor it in,

Yahoo says they don't use it but others say they do,

Bing says they don't use it for good seo, but rather use it as a signal the site is potentially a spam site. So, given that information would you use it?

My opinion is there is no sense in using it, any search engine that will use it to factor a webpage probably sucks so nobody uses their service anyway, and if people actually use that crappy search engine I don't want to be on the sites those people like.

[MichelMauquoi]

Hi Donford,

1. Ok I got it!  And did it already in my website!

2. Sorry but as I'm not a professional and never learned I do not know what it is! The home page url is http://www.thailand-investigation.com/index.htm => Right? So how should I write the links to avoid a 301 redirect... Is it => http://www.thailand-investigation.com/   -- only like that? Please advise!

3. yes, I start to understand it! And as I pay him every 12 of each month, I will not renew it!

You are right to say my audience is the customers not the search engines... But if I do not have any users coming to visit my website => I will not have any new customer! The nature of our business make it that more than 80 % of new customers are from search engine queries! Happily, we are in business 10 years already and we have some returning customers, new customers from mouth to mouth recommendation and we have also partner agency working with us for them needs in Thailand! But our business is like others, if we do not have new customers (fast or slow), we'll die!

4. about the meta keyword! Do Yahoo and Bing still use it? If I take it out, will it hurt our ranking in Yahoo and/or Bing? Please advise!

5. about 1 or 2 keyword per pages... I understand and I'm busy to review my pages content to be in accordance with what you say! I do it out of the web for now and after I quit my SEO guy (12/11/12) I'll put it live!

Thanks for the link to the recommended companies!

All further advises are welcomed!

[donford]

Hi Michel,

1. How windows open is a preference thing, I will say the normal behavior is links inside your domain just open in the same window, while external links would open in a new window. Deviating from this behavior is not going to get you penalized by a search engine rather it is going to annoy the hell out of your users, who in turn may not come back to your site. New tab is the same as a new window.

2. The link, what cardigan is saying is your have a link (HOME BUTTON) pointing to a page that gets 301 redirected, instead of making the crawlers bounce around, why not point directly to your root instead of a redirected page?

3. I think your SEO guy is out of date, repeating keywords for the sake of search engines is not the way to design a site. Your audience is the customers not the search engine.

4. The general conscience is that there is no search engine penalty for using the meta keyword tag, however you must realize by putting your keywords up like that you are basically saying to all your competitors these are the keywords i want to rank for.

5. Competing pages are not just limited to those pages, you need to have specific keywords for each page, 1 to 2 that you wish to target, Because you agency name is so specific and long you may want to limit using it in the title tag to 1 or 2 pages.

SEOmoz maintains a list of recommended companies here.

I have never used an external SEO company. Just remember a good SEO company is worth their weight in gold.

[MichelMauquoi]

Hi donford,

First of all, thanks a lot for your help! Really appreciate!

I do not know when our ranking dropped but it was long time before September 2012!

I started to see some "contact form request" drop at the end of last year and some more in April or May this year! But because we still have customers sent to us by mouth to mouth recommendation and contact we've build with some partner agencies, it took me long time to recognize what happened!

I welcome ALL constructive critiques!

Please read the answer I gave to cardiganmedia (here up), about some of the recommendations you gave me!

About the title tag => it has been written by my SEO "Specialist" I out-source! (please read my answer to cardiganmedia about what I think now about this "specialist")!

I'll follow "cardiganmedia" and your advises and today I will start with the "easy to fix points" (Tittle length, target="_self" in stet of target="_blank" links, link to /index.htm change to www.thailand-investigation.com/).

I'll ask you the same as I asked to cardiganmedia => Can you recommend me a SEO consultant (a good one, not like the one working for me now) that I could work with (not too expensive - we are not rich)...

Thanks again for your help and please give me more

PS. About changing target link from target="_self" to target="_blank", do I have to do it also for the links pointing to other websites? Thanks!

[MichelMauquoi]

Hi cardiganmedia,

First of all, thank you for your help!

Answer to your questions:

1. All menu links open in a new window. Why? => When I do it on my computer, it opens a new tab, not a new window. Personally, It is the way I like it (that's why I did it) => easy to come back just close the new tab... But if it is against what Google likes... I'll change it!

2. Home link points to /index.htm, which is then 301-ed. Why? => should I point to "www.thailand-investigation.com/" only to avoid the 301...?

3. You're using a lot of repeating keywords/terms in your title tags. => 3 - 4 years ago, I used a SEO company to bring us to the first page (they did it in a few months) and they gave me a list of keywords to insert a certain amount of time... private investigator thailand 2X | private detective Bangkok 3X... They changed by them self the page <title>and <meta content description></strong>. I the beginning of September this year after understanding that our website dropped, <strong>I employed an other SEO "specialist" and he told me nearly the same!</strong> He changed the <title> and <meta content description> again (into the actual ones). But after 2 months of his services, <strong>I'm not happy!!! It seems like he do not count with Google changes...</strong></p> <p>4) <strong><em>Ditto for descriptions, meta keywords (ditch this) and on-page content</em></strong>. => I understand what you say about to many keywords in the description... But about the meta keywords, you say "ditch this"! I know that Google do not use it anymore but what about Bing and Yahoo? We are still well ranked in them search engine and I do not want to loose the little we still have??? Please advise!</p> <p>5) <em><strong>English landing page basically competes with home page. Each page should have a purpose/target</strong>.</em> => OK, <strong>I understand this and I feel, more and more, that<span style="text-decoration: underline;"> I have to fired my SEO "specialist"</span> (out-sourced).</strong></p> <p>Can you recommend me a SEO consultant (a good one, not like the one working for me now) that I could work with (not too expensive - we are not rich)...</p> <p>Thanks again for your help and please give me more ;-)</p></title>

[edwardrj]

Yep. And from the looks of it, typed it at about the same time.

[donford]

Seems like we have basically the same advise

[donford]

Hi Michel,

Based on the information you have provided, the timeline and you domain name. I have a strong suspicion that you were benefiting from PMD or EMD (partial match / exact match) domain names. Google reduced the value of some of these domain types in September.. does that coincide with your traffic / ranking decline?

Further suggestions, I"m not trying to be critical, rather constructive.

1. Site useability, all your links open in new window. That is very annoying.
2. Titles title tags should be no longer then 70 characters everything else after that is ignored. Maximize your titles.
3. Work on link building, not from free or easy directory sites, get high value links from industry related blogs, government sites, business sites, corporate sites.
4. English reword the text to be natural sounding, currently it reads like it has been keyword injected. That is off putting to users.
5. Create a hierarchical structure for the flow of your site. Tailor you keywords to match. You are currently competing with yourself on keywords on about every page and even with your own blog.

A good place to start here is at the beginners guide.

Provided you did not received any warnings from Google, I think you're just a causality of an algorithm change, which is rather good, because that means you didn't do anything wrong, you just haven't done enough right.

I believe you to be very well versed in your industry, you just need to present youself that way on your website, avoid trying to make the search engines rank you, rather make your vistors want to come back to your site. In turn they will make the search engines rank you.

Short Answer, the information you provide is great, edit it to sound natural, create a flow for you website, and then work with industry related sites to get links. Follow the basics of SEO and you should find yourself on the first page again.

[edwardrj]

There are lots of issues with your site -- you may not think these all relate to SEO, but some relate to user-experience, which can ultimately make a difference, particularly if you've been slapped by Google as you say. I recommend engaging in a full review of every aspect:

1. All menu links open in a new window. Why?

2. Home link points to /index.htm, which is then 301-ed. Why?

3. You're using a lot of repeating keywords/terms in your title tags.

4. Ditto for descriptions, meta keywords (ditch this) and on-page content.

5. English landing page basically competes with home page. Each page should have a purpose/target.

Nowhere near a comprehensive list, I'm just trying to give you a place to start.

[MichelMauquoi]

No the blog started in October 2008! With around 3 new articles per month!

I changed (mostly added) content text after discovering our ranking droped (around 2 months ago)!

Before that I did not change ANYTHING in the main website (except the blog)!

[donford]

Hi Michel is the blog a new addition?

Also did you change your homepage main content (text) ?

[MichelMauquoi]

The only attachment I put is a picture of a button with the inscription"HELP"!

But if you need anything else... just ask!

Thanks!

[MichelMauquoi]

I did not remove any pages or changed any extensions!

After knowing that our rank dropped, I ad some content, ad pictures... but only in the part... And after we already dropped!

Keywords:

• Private investigator Thailand
• Private detective Thailand
• Detectives Thailand...

Also the same with Bangkok & Pattaya (replacing Thailand)...

Thanks!

[josh-riley]

Your attachments aren't showing up.

[donford]

Hi Michael did you remove any pages, or change their names or extensions? Also can you provide us with a couple of major keywords you would expect to be on the first page for?